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#281 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 39,785
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#282 |
Devilish Dictionarian
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: An elusive house at Bachelors Grove Cemetery
Posts: 19,985
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"You must not let your need to be right be more important than your need to find out what's true." - Ray Dalio, Principles |
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#283 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#284 |
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Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#285 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 39,785
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#286 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 5,085
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#287 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 21,212
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If some sort of acopolyse wiped out everyone on Earth but the nerds, I swear after a few generations the spoken language with but nothing but "Damok and Jalad at Tenagra" style pop culture references and the written language would be pictographs based on xkcd and SMBC comics.
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- "Ernest Hemingway once wrote that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part." - Detective Sommerset - "Stupidity does not cancel out stupidity to yield genius. It breeds like a bucket-full of coked out hamsters." - The Oatmeal - "To the best of my knowledge the only thing philosophy has ever proven is that Descartes could think." - SMBC |
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#288 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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I have a friend at Defcon right now. The first talk he attended was about election hacking. Below is a picture he took of a voting machine along with his comment:
Quote:
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#289 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,291
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Just to expand on this abit as well ...
Let's say they are going to allow e-voting registration to start tomorrow. The bad actors can register before you, most likely, as they don't need all that sleep stuff. So then to get your voting ID back you will likely have to provide all sorts of various ID documents to prove that you are who the government says you are. It could take months to straighten it all out. The problem is not "will it all be added up correctly" which seems to be the focus of the blockchain. The problem is how do we determine that vote X was cast by an eligible person? Blockchain can not answer that. |
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#290 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 19,091
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There is a guy I see advertising his security lectures on YT quite a bit, and one of the things he says is that "It is impossible to make a system that is totally secure against the bad guys, and totally insecure for the good guys."
He's right, you can't have a way in for the good guys and still expect to totally keep out the bad guys. |
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#291 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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What a load of ****! The one part of the electronic system that can't be setup to give the desired results is the blockchain itself and if you read anything I posted then you would know why.
I know that electronic voting is not ready to be trusted in the real world. However, this desperate determination that everybody has to prove that absolutely . . . every . . . single . . . word that I have uttered on this subject to be wrong is insane! |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#292 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#293 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#294 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#295 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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__________________
OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#296 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#297 |
Student
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 34
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#298 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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OK, a different way to get my point home.
How does blockchain prevent a corrupt voting register creating phantom registered voters that sit in the system and then verifying them with blockchain? The blockchain itself can be perfectly reliable, but it can't know that it's been fed bad starting data. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#299 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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OK, a different way to get my point home.
How does blockchain prevent a corrupt voting register creating phantom registered voters that sit in the system and then verifying them with blockchain? The blockchain itself can be perfectly reliable, but it can't know that it's been fed bad starting data. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#300 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#301 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#302 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 5,085
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Well, if all you want to talk about is blockchain, rather than electronic voting ![]() |
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#303 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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Not true. I have also discussed electronic voting tickets and how they can be stolen, misallocated or filled out by malware (presumably while displaying false information to the voter). I have also discussed the need for a process in case a voter complains that the vote on the blockchain isn't the way they voted.
Of course, if you only read what others say I have posted then you would never have believed that. The key to blockchain security (in bitcoin) is the SHA256 algorithm. It takes a stream of characters as its input and outputs a 256 bit "hash". If just one bit of the input stream is altered then a completely different hash is produced. So far, there is no known way to reverse the hashing algorithm. That is, given a hash code, there is no known way to deduce the original character stream. So you can only keep guessing until you get the answer "close enough". If a mathematical method were ever discovered to reverse hash codes then the viability of blockchains would be the least of our problems. Note that there is no backdoor method of bypassing hash codes. Being open source software, any attempt to include a back door would have been discovered almost immediately. |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#304 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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What strawman arguments?
Whoa. Ad hominem. I’m not finding any fault with your descriptions or understanding of block chain or how it could be used for electronic voting. What i, and others, have pointed out is that it is largely immaterial to the actual problems involved, to which you have already agreed. The difference seems to be that you think it will ever make sense to have a reliable electronic voting system, if only some of the technology were better. I’m telling you that will never happen so long as humans have any access to the system at any level*. Give that there is a profit to be made in rigging elections only assures that even more. * Hell, you don’t even need access to the voting system, if you have access to the voters and a convincing spoof. |
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#305 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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As per Upchurch, I can accept that the blockchain algorithm is mathematically perfect.
I can accept for the sake of argument that a system would enable those people who are issued with votes to verify that their vote was cast as they intended whilst simultaneously allowing other people to check that only people on the electoral roll have voted. The problem is that this still leaves massive loopholes. How do you preserve anonymity if you want to check that all the votes for a particular candidate are counted at one vote per person? How do you ensure that all the voters exist outside of the electoral roll? How do you protect against spear phishing? Also, open source software still has security issues. At work, we have had Linux security patches issued. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#306 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2006
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#307 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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could you say that in English, please?
Although that does highlight the problem of transparency - many experts are highly skeptical of the idea, but non experts are supposed to take the assurances of the enthusiasts on trust ( most people don't understand blockchain). |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#308 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,291
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#309 |
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
Posts: 5,702
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum. |
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#310 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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If you are referring to 51% attacks then that has already been discussed. http://www.internationalskeptics.com...6#post12384356
I think it has been pretty well established that the existing electronic voting machines were set up by criminals who's main objectives were hackability and opaqueness. |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#311 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 5,085
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No, I'm referring to the fact that it is theoretically possible to alter a block if you alter all the blocks that follow it, which requires finding new nonces for each, and then add another block that makes it longer than any chain that any node already has. That's because when a node sees a difference in chains distributed from other nodes, the longest (most work) chain is taken as the valid one. The only thing that prevents that is the (current) inability to do that faster than all the other nodes combined can add new blocks to the chain, i.e. you'd need more computing power than all the rest of the nodes to get ahead of them. If someone found some sort of filter that reduced the number of trials required by a couple orders of magnitude, then it might be possible.
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#312 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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I think you have answered your own objection. There is not enough computing power to alter more than the most recent block or two and even then, you would have to be able to compute nonces at least twice as fast as the rest of the network combined. Six confirmations (the sixth most recent block) is usually regarded as the the point where we can say that alteration becomes "impossible". Even if you could get at the block, you would not be able to alter the votes in the block because each vote is digitally signed. The most you could do is delete a vote from the block but then other nodes would pick it up and add it to the blockchain again.
Aaaand . . . we are back to cracking the SHA 256 hashing algorithm again. Trust me, if that ever happens then the whole world will know about it. |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#313 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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What happens if you start at the first vote... because you have compromised the system in a way that gives you a head start of a few seconds?
Regardless of this, it seems a bit like saying that the Yamato would have been able to defeat any USN battleship. Arguable, but irrelevant if the attack vector is something completely different. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#314 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 5,085
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You don't understand what I mean, which is not "cracking" SHA256. I'm simply talking about a filter that would reduce the average number of trial nonces that would need to be tested to find one that produced the required number of leading zeros in the hash. For all I know, some sort of neural net might find a usable pattern in past blocks. I'm not saying that I expect that to happen; I'm saying that's one of the reasons I'm not buying any bitcoins -- rather far down the list, actually.
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#315 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 19,091
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Let's look at some of the recent criminal activity with Elections. In the 2016 Election, the Russians stole identity data from thousands of USers via FB and Cambridge Analytics. We also know that they were able to hack a number of State's voter registration systems.
In your system, how would you prevent them from doing the same thing, determine which voters are unlikely to vote or register to vote, then hack into the system and create registered voters for those people, which they could then use to create votes in the election? |
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![]() It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871) ![]() |
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#316 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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I don't have a satisfactory answer to this question. Online Voter registration and identity theft are not issues that can be solved by a blockchain (AFAIK).
i suspect that if done properly, fraudulent registration could be minimized but that doesn't seem to be one of the objectives of those who set these systems up. |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#317 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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And then, once you’re done with that, you then have to do what electronic security experts do:
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#318 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 21,531
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#319 | |||
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,843
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That's because there are none.
I feel like this needs another watch by the thread at large:
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#320 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 15,193
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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